AC Privacy U.S. Tracks Canadian Travellers - U.S. tracks...

U.S. tracks Canadians for terror traits Monitoring system stores data on flights, licence plates, credit cards, addresses Dec. 2, 2006. 08:47 AM, www.thestar.com TIM HARPER WASHINGTON BUREAU WASHINGTON—The U.S. government knows where you sat on your last cross-border flight, how you paid for your ticket, your email address, your phone number, even your special meal requests in the past. They won't let you look at the information but they can share it with law enforcement agencies, foreign governments, even public health agencies and they can keep the dossiers compiled on millions of Canadian travellers for up to 40 years. It's all in the name of assigning you a score as a potential terrorist under a program known as the Automated Targeting System (ATS). U.S. privacy advocates and some legislators promised to fight to kill the program yesterday, but the Department of Homeland Security was unapologetic, saying the ATS is really just a continuation of a program overseen by another agency for more than a decade. Every traveller from every nation, arriving by land, air or sea, is screened under the program. There was no official reaction from Ottawa to the U.S. program yesterday. A consultation period inviting comments on the plan ends Monday at which time Washington will

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